Collapse
by ncfan
Summary: -Beast Boy x Terra- Dead as dust.


Obviously, this is post-_Aftershock_, but pre_-Things Change_. You might think my view of Terra to be a bit harsh, but I try to write her as a flawed character, and her greatest flaw was that she could never face the consequences of her actions; she always ran. Also, a lot of Beast Boy's speculation comes from the fact that he couldn't read her mind and didn't really know what was in Terra's heart. I'm not trying to bash her character.

Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titans.

* * *

It's worse now that she's cold stone and the sight of her granite face is all you can see when you close your eyes, burned into your retinas. You, for just a moment, wish you could go mad so none of it would matter anymore, but then you stop and you're glad you're still sane. When you're sane you know the animal inside you hasn't won yet.

Memories spill from you. You aren't sure what you want.

When she betrayed you, betrayed your team but more importantly _you_, she ripped you apart. Tore you apart with those callused hands and threw you away. You weren't important to her anymore; you were just expendable.

You returned home and found the carnage and dissolved into your grief.

You thought you would forget her. You _hoped_ you would forget her.

You were wrong.

Terra didn't let you forget her. She never wanted to be forgotten; always had to be at the forefront of every room even if she had to push everyone else into the background to do so. She couldn't be away from the action for long. So she came back.

She came back, beautiful in a terrible way and so filled with corrosive rage and hate. She blamed you for all of her problems because she had never learned responsibility and showed you no mercy for making her face the reality of her choices as you had in the past.

And when you found that she would not listen to you, wouldn't repent, had repudiated you more irrevocably than she had before and wanted nothing more than to see your body dead beneath her, you learned to hate her.

Your hate was the hate of an animal and thus couldn't be moved or bent without great force. You hated Terra…you're not sure why you hated Terra. Maybe it was because she claimed to hate you. Maybe it was because she tried to kill you.

Maybe it was because she didn't love you anymore, when all you could do was love her.

You had always worked to keep your animal urges at bay but for once you would let them steer and they told you to kill her. They told you to be angry. They told you to seek revenge. You listened, you heeded, and the friends who still cared watched with no small concern at the way you changed.

But, of course, love is always stronger than hate, and when she cried, your hate wouldn't stand.

You're staring at her face again. Not as she was (all the pictures are thrown away; you can't stand to look at them, to be reminded of a time when you were happy with her), but as she is now. Granite, chiseled, and lifeless. With blank eyes, not blue ones.

You don't know what you want.

She screamed at you to kill her. You remember with a shiver how much you wanted to, are shocked by how much you wanted to see her dead, until you heard the terror in her voice.

Terra didn't sound like a human when she screamed like that. She sounded like an animal, trammeled and tortured. She didn't sound human anymore.

And she fought more like an animal than you ever had. Even with the coldest of men controlling her she fought like an animal.

But your hatred had melted away when you smelled blood and realized it was hers. Blood matted her hair, trickled down her face, from the ripped binding down to the black bruises that were showing on her arms and legs, far deeper than the skin.

She had paid for running away.

But she still fought. And you couldn't hate her anymore. You wish you could, but you couldn't.

The fire twisted up all around you and she still wasn't willing to face her mistakes. They call her act heroic, and it was, but you can't help but wonder if it wasn't just a little cowardly too. Terra found another way out, another way to keep from facing what she had done, what she was still doing.

You do remember that you felt sick, though. You were sick with grief because you were going to lose her and sick at heart because you realized that even as she hugged you and cried all over you that she didn't love you. And you wondered if she ever had.

Well, you'll never know now. Terra's certainly not talking.

You don't know what you wish, as you look at her now.

She doesn't look beautiful as she did before. When Terra was still pliant flesh she wasn't beautiful as in model-gorgeous but she had that wild, lonely quality about her, like a high-flying bird that flew alone. She could never be more than she was and she knew it, and it made her sad. She's certainly not beautiful now. She's just rock.

You don't know what you want.

A part of you screams for her to come back to you, even though you know how much pain it would cause. She leaned on you, looked to you for support but in the final moment she didn't love you. If she ever had, that love had died and couldn't be resurrected. Slade had taken from her the ability to ever love someone again, and she couldn't love you, however much she might have wanted you.

The part of you that cares for your own well-being isn't sure it wants Terra back. Terra brought chaos and pain into your life. She made you feel for the first time, know what it was like to lose someone even though that someone hadn't died. Terra made you know what it felt like to have to grow up in a second the way Mento and Robin never could. She made you fight for the right to breathe. She killed you in so many ways.

Raven's told you not to bring roses anymore; instead, she says bring white irises instead. You're not sure what the significance is, but you don't argue with her and you lay the bouquet down at stony feet the way you always do.

As you leave, you don't know what you want.

Except that you _wish_ you knew what you wanted.

And you wish you knew if Terra ever loved you at all.

* * *

Ten points to the reviewer who can tell me why Raven told Beast Boy to bring Terra irises instead of roses.


End file.
